Group Seeks To Block Grain Elevator In St. John Parish

By Roshaun Higgins

The Advocate

A local group seeking to block a planned grain elevator in St. John the Baptist Parish is for the second time asking a judge to issue a restraining order against the parish for making a rezoning request on the behalf of Greenfield, the company behind the proposal.

A hearing on the request from the activist group the Descendants Project was held Thursday, just days before the parish's Planning Commission is set to hold a meeting at which it might vote on the matter.

Fortieth Judicial District Court Judge Nghana Lewis has yet to issue a ruling on the request for a restraining order.

The Descendants Project argues the parish shouldn't have submitted the request since there are unresolved court filings against the parish regarding the rezoning.

''I think the only honest thing to do is to take this off the agenda,'' said Joy Banner, co-founder of the Descendants Project. ''Let this work itself through the courts, give it time to get situated before you make any decisions on this.''

The zoning for the property, located in Wallace on the parish's rural west bank, was previously changed from residential to heavy industrial in 1990 when Formosa was planning to build a chemical plant there. That project was ultimately abandoned.

The parish president at the time, Lester Millet Jr., was convicted of money laundering, extortion and racketeering in connection with the Formosa deal. Millet was found to have shared in a commission on the property in exchange for his help in getting it rezoned.

Banner and sister Jo Banner, who founded the Descendants Project, filed suit two years ago to have the 1990 zoning change revoked, saying that Millet's corruption conviction nullified the zoning change.

In early August, 40th Judicial District Judge J. Sterling Snowdy ruled that the 1990 rezoning wasn't properly approved, though not because of the parish president's crime. Rather, Snowdy said the zoning change wasn't approved first by the Planning Commission, as required under the parish's charter. Thus the zoning was changed back to residential.

The parish voted in late August to ''affirm'' the zoning change, despite Lewis granting a restraining order sought by the Banners against the parish changing the zoning back. The parish claims that they are obeying the order because the rezoning is going through the commission this time, unlike the change in 1990.

In its October meeting, Planning Commission Chair Georgia Keller said that the issue needed to be carefully examined before approval. She said she had not seen such a dramatic change in zoning - from the least dense residential designation to the highest commercial classification - in her four years on the board.

The Descendants Project also claimed that Parish President Jaclyn Hotard could be defying a state ethics rule saying that officials cannot participate in government decisions that would financially benefit close relatives. Hotard's mother owns a property adjacent to Greenfield's, which the Descendants claim would go up in value if Greenfield moves forward with the grain terminal.

Lewis did not address this claim, saying it wasn't within the scope of the matter before her. Hotard said her participation was simply that of a functionary and therefore didn't apply: She said the Parish Council approved the zoning, and she merely signed the ordinance as part of her duties as the parish's chief executive.

The Descendants also claimed the parish had numerous omissions and errors in its rezoning application, including studies to the impacts of surrounding neighborhoods. The zoning map submitted was identical to the 1990 map, though the plots listed in the rezoning request were not all the same. For example, some residents' homes would be within the industrial zoning on the map, though their properties were not among the plots listed.

''We heard from two members of two families who have land like that: The Dumas family and the Jack family,'' said William Most, an attorney representing the Descendants Project. ''There's at the very least, serious uncertainty about whether these people's land is going to be rezoned as industrial without them being told that by the parish.''

The parish's attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

The Planning Commission is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday at 1811 W. Airline Highway.